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Topic: WinSPWW2 tutorial (Read 10099 times)

Since many people seem to be quite interested in playing this game, I will do a quick tutorial to cover some basics. Note that this will be mostly tactical stuff, I think you are all competent enough to figure out the controls without me...As an example I will use the first non-tutorial scenario that ships with the game, called "organized Chaos". The Germans assault a Polish trench position here. I will play as the Germans.When you start the scenario, a pre-planned mortar barrage will hit the Polish trenches. After this is done, first take a look at the map.

As you can see, it is a pretty basic scenario. I have highlighted two areas of interest: One is the Polish trench system, situated on a small hill, the second is another hill in your deployment area.Next look at your army.

It consists of the following units:The commander (A0)1 Infanterie Kompanie, which is organized as follows:2 Headquarter squads and a Lafette team (B0, B1, B3), one of which is a heavy weapons section with 5cm mortars. This hq commands three platoons (C0-3, D0-3, E0-3), each consisting of four infantry sections. C Platoon has one pioneer team instead of one inf section.

Next we have F-Platoon and G-Platoon, which are scouts. These are harder for the enemy to detect and carry machine pistols, so sneak them up before your units. G-Platoon has another Lafette.The last unit are 8cm medium mortars for indirect fire.

Next up: The plan

This scenario has one simple challenge: How do you get your guys into the trenches without them dying? The answer is suppression. For one thing, you need to keep the mortars firing at the trenches. You have no forward observer, so let your command unit spot for artillery. For now he cannot see the position. During the battle you should move him up to a position from where he can observe the Polish trenches, but for now that is not that important. Select him, press "B" and you get the artillery menu.

You can see the two mortar sections in this menu. If they were not there, it would mean your selected spotter is not in contact. That happens sometimes, especially when there are no radios in one of the units involved. You can see a number besides the mortars (2.2) This means it takes two turns to call in the artillery IF you select a completely new spot. However, we will not do this. For one thing, you have this golden spot with the "1" in it. This is a pre registered spot for artillery. In campaign battles you can place these before the game starts. If you target this spot, artillery will always only take 1 round to arrive. However, it works even faster. As you can see, I selected one of the mortars and one hex is highlighted in red. This is the hex the mortar bombarded in the pre planned artillery barrage. We will just tell the mortars to resume this barrage by clicking on the "fire" button without doing anything else.

It will look like this. In your case, the hexes might be at slightly different positions, since mortar fire drifts randomly. The number is now 0.1, which means the bombardment goes on next round without delay. During the battle, regularly check on the mortars to resume the bombardment (every two turns, usually). If you notice that one of the mortars drifted of target, use the blue cross button to re adjust its fire. If you want, you can also switch to smoke ammo.

With the mortars set to fire, we will look at the force again. Generally speaking you should have a movement element and a fire element. In this scenario you already have two heavy mg teams on top of the small hill. Move them into a position from where they can see the trenches. Check their cones of fire by right clicking in the direction of the trenches after moving.

The first one is already in a nice position here, the second one will need to move up more. After the are in position, do NOT move them anymore, just keep firing at observed targets. The majority of the infantry company will serve as movement element. Just move them straight at the trenches until contact is made. Use the hq elements as fire support by keeping them static. There won't be any combat in the first round.

This was the situation for me in round 3, after the Poles opened fire. If their units do not show up at once, click on some of your units and right click at their general suspected position, after a while they should show up. What we see is an HMG and an infantry squad. Now use your fire element to suppress these by firing at them. You should be able to inflict some casualties to the inf squads, since Poles tend to use 20 man squads. This bunches up a lot of people in one hex. Once all units you see are "retreating", pause the fire and move up more squads of you movement element. If these draw fire from more units, identify them and shoot at them with your fire element. If not, and you have moved all possible units forward, go back to the fire element and expend the rest of their shots, then end the turn. Do not shoot with elements of the advancing infantry for now, that way they have shots left to react to fire in the Polish turn.

Some general advise on suppressing: Always have a unit shoot at the same enemy unit. The more they shoot at the same unit, the more accurate they become. On the flipside, say you shoot with one of your mgs and the Poles return fire in your round, then first select the other MG and shoot with it. Then the Poles are forced to return fire at IT. Just shoot one mg, then the other one, then the first one again etc until all shots for that round are expended. This way you minimize the Polish hit chances while maximizing your own. PRO Tip: Instead of always clicking on the same target, click on it once, then press "F" to repeat the same order.

In my case the Poles scored a hit on one of my mgs and forced them to retreat. I failed to rally them. In a case like this it might be good to stop the advance of one of your infantry platoons and use them as another fire base. Only use static units as a firing element unless you are in close combat! The overall goal is to have all visible Polish units who are able to fire on you advancing troops in a "retreating" or "routed" stance.

If all goes well you should be able to move your scout troops within one hex of the suppressed Poles by turn 5. Once you are there, open up with your machine pistols at close range! Normally you would not use scouts as combat troops like this, but in this case it is justified. By now you also come into the kind of ranges where you can fire the squads of your movement elements, but ONLY AFTER moving. The main job is still getting into close range! However, at this point more suppression is vital, since the Polish rifles also get more accurate at closer ranges. Remember to shift your mortars away from your scout teams a bit.

Once you get into this kind of close combat with the Poles suppressed, the jig is up. Many will start fleeing to the rear. Keep moving your troop close and keep the pressure up. Don't be squeamish, shoot at fleeing units to keep them from rallying. You need to keep the momentum up!

At this point I found some mines in the north. You can clear these by having an infantry unit idle in the same hex. If you move through the hex, there is a chance you receive casualties. Infantry takes a long time to clear mines. Pioneers are faster and can clear the minefields from an adjacent hex, so they don't need to enter them and there is no risk of receiving casualties. Since the scenario here is a quick one, I would not bother with clearing them, just find a way around or move units through them and get the occasional casualty.

By now you should have figured out how this works. Keep the Poles suppressed and move your guys into the trenches. Capture the victory locations. Remember: The only way to reliably kill people with infantry is over ranges of between 3 and 0 hexes. If the Poles are unsuppressed while you move into that range, you are toast!

Can you capture enemy vehicles/tanks/guns? And how do you get build points for mines and trenches?

When you are spending your Support points before a battle, you can buy captured/Allied enemy vehicles, but these will not be added to your core force. Some OOBs have captured equipment though: The German one has French and Russian tanks, artillery, some infantry will have captured weapons, etc. The Russian OOB has captured Panzer I, II, III, and so on. Those units can be bought for your core forces.

Build points are for Defense and Delay maps only, on those battles you will see a "Build Mines/DT/Trenches" button when you are spending support points. Fougasse, demo charges and booby traps can be bought for any battle though.

So as long as I only target the same hex, it will be a constant barrage, but Its the redirecting that takes time? Are there any mods that implements height numbers on hexes so i dont need to hoover over each hex? And the number of men would have also been nice to see. I guess FO have a good camo value and can hide easily? Unit data is also a bit confusing. I dont understand penetration values. They are writtten like "x : y" for instance 1:4.

About the artillery: If you just repeat the same hex as before, there is no delay. You can also use the blue cross button to shift your fire over 2 hexes without there being a delay (if you shift more, there will be a round of delay, unless the spotter can see the area).If you designate a new target you get the full delay. And yes, FOs are harder to spot, just like scout teams, snipers and small tank hunter teams.